Auto Light and its 96,000 dealers present Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light brings you The Wages of Sin, a suspense play starring Miss Barbara
Stanwyck as Ruby Miller.
You know her, Dorick?
Yeah.
Ruby Miller.
Pretty good picture of her.
You know, this is her apartment.
She's had it for two months.
What was he doing here?
Don't know.
He was dating when we got here.
Shot within the hour.
Hello, Captain.
We've been working hard.
Hello, Frank.
Who is he?
Driver's license says his name is David Madlock, age 42, this city.
It is Madlock.
Hard to recognize him with that kind of shooting.
Keep going, Frank.
Death's clerk, Frank DiMarco, saw Madlock come through lobby about nine o'clock, alone.
He got it here a few minutes later.
What was Madlock doing here?
He was in the lobby.
DiMarco and the day clerk say they never saw him in building before.
Who reported it?
Janitor.
Heard the shots.
Called downtown, saw nothing.
Madlock's got a wife.
I sent the boys out to pick her up.
Okay.
Doc tells me this is Ruby Miller's apartment.
That's right.
She rented it two months ago.
Haven't located her yet.
Now the tabloids are going to make this look juicy.
David Madlock slain in Beauty's apartment.
If I know those tabloids we got in this town, that'll be tame.
All right, we'll get you a new one.
I'll be right back.
I'll be right back.
I'll be right back.
I'll be right back.
I'll be right back.
I'll be right back.
I'll be right back.
I'll be right back.
All right, let's find her and get her story.
I want an all points bulletin out for Ruby Miller right away.
She finally got herself messed up in something too big to handle.
In just a moment, Miss Barbara Stanwyck in the first act of The Wages of Sin.
What's going on, Marlo?
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Now for what?
Your car.
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And now with the wages of sin and the performance of Miss Barbara Stanwyck as Ruby Miller, auto light hopes once again to keep you in suspense.
I don't care who you are, nobody gets in.
This is my apartment, pinhead.
Hey, what's going on out here, Sergeant? Who's this?
Who are you? Hey, what's the idea of all these cops? You're holding crime school in my apartment or something?
You're Ruby Miller?
Yeah, that's right.
Come on in.
Nice of you.
I was just starting out to look for you.
What's going on around here, anyhow? I leave for a couple of hours and...
Yeah?
My rug!
His name is Frank Madlock. Interested?
What'd he bleed all over my rug for?
Come on, sister, the captain wants to see you.
Well, I want to see him. What kind of a police force do we have in this town? A lady can't go out for a drink without coming home to find...
Get your hands off me!
Inside!
When I finish my judo course, I'm going to look you up.
Hello, Ruby.
Oh! I draw all the dreamy ones. I might have known it'd be you, Captain Salvador.
That's all, Frank.
Yeah, that's all, Frank.
Tell me about yourself, Ruby.
You losing your hair?
It's falling out worrying about you. The last time was 47. No visible means of support.
I didn't know we were going to talk about old times or I'd have cracked a bottle.
We aren't going to talk about that guy lying in there in front of your fireplace.
Well...
They tell me his name is David Madlock.
You know that's his name. What's he doing in there?
How should I know? I never saw him my whole life.
How long have you been seeing him? What did you fight about?
Ruby, you've had four arrests and one conviction in your time. You know we always get the answers.
Captain Doric Salvador, carpereau. Ha!
Been in the drug store since 8.30. Fifteen people saw me drinking my malted milk while Junior in there must have been getting his brains blown out.
Do they all have names?
Every one of them. It was a bowling team on their way home. The Lofers.
You're telling me that corpse is a man you never saw before in your life?
That's exactly what I am telling you. Your crew will find that out by poking into everything and everybody in town.
They'll also find my alibis good and that your guesses are bad.
If Madlock or whatever his name is staggers into my apartment while I'm out and somebody bumps him off, that's not my fault.
And you nor any other single headed cop is going to write it any different.
All right, Ruby. Let's go downtown.
Well, Doric Dream, you booked me as a material witness as expected.
After all, you had to take somebody downtown.
The newspapers tossed a lot of type around. My picture was in every paper, every edition.
But after two days it died on the vine. I made three inches in the second section after that.
Ruby Miller released for lack of evidence.
The morning I got out, I'll wait while you blush. I wanted a bath more than anything else.
All right, all right. Just a minute. I'm coming.
Hello, Ruby. I missed you before you left the station.
I'm tired of looking at cops, Captain.
This will only take a minute.
I'll time you myself.
Thanks. I, uh, just been out talking to Marie Madlock, Dave Madlock's widow.
The way things happen, she still thinks that you and her husband were real palsy on the side.
She hates the memory of him now.
Don't you ever give up.
I don't like to see a nice woman like Mrs. Madlock running around believing something that isn't true.
My boys peeked under every rock and tom before you were sprung, Ruby.
They came up with two things that got you out.
You were in the drug store while Madlock was being killed and you never knew the guy.
I'm convinced of that.
My bath water is getting cold. So am I.
Look, Ruby, you moved in that apartment two months ago, paid $400 rent in advance.
The same day you deposited $1,000 at Freeman's National.
You also bought $400 worth of clothes and trinkets.
I hit a horse.
Somebody gave you dough to play a part in this. Who?
We've gone all through this before.
Who, Ruby? A key to this apartment was found on Madlock's body.
How'd you get that key?
I don't know, Captain. I just don't know.
I should have my luck changed.
All right, Ruby, I'm leaving.
Sorry you didn't have any luck, Captain.
You know, whenever you get out of this, they'll take 20 times as much back from you, right down to your soul.
Madlock's killing was top drawer stuff with some big people involved,
people who don't care anything about you because you were just background scenery.
They might want to change at any time.
Aren't you scared, Ruby?
Yeah. You'll never see the day.
Okay.
Grandissimo buiardo.
What does that mean?
You're a liar, Ruby.
You're a liar, Ruby.
Where did you get off thinking I was scared?
What was there to be scared of, Art?
I held three aces in the deck and that was enough, at least to make a starting bid.
When I looked out my window that night and saw two men in overcoats standing across the street from the apartment,
I felt extra brain.
I wasn't worried one bit.
Hello?
Ruby Milley?
Yes.
What are you still doing in town?
I'm waiting for a phone call, but it's not from you.
You're asking for a doll. I'll be over.
Well, say hello to the two cops standing in front of my apartment house.
Salvador's got them on me 24 hours a day.
Play it smart, doll. Get out of town while you've got legs to walk on.
Listen, you thick-lipped creep, I want to talk to him, the big man, right away.
And if I don't, I'll talk to the cops.
I just said how you better act, doll.
Sorry to disappoint you again, Dorch.
Well, I wasn't scared that time either.
A spook call was always standard operating procedure for those kind of people.
It let me down a little, though, having them think I was so square I wasn't expecting it.
When I went to bed that night, I was dreaming of a new kind of life.
And it started the next day with bells.
Hello?
Miss Miller? My name is Victor Sheridan.
I'm the attorney for the big man.
And that's as close as you're going to get. Take it or leave it.
My offices are in the equity building, Suite 203.
I'll expect you any time today.
That was the music I was waiting for, Dorch.
I'll expect you any time. And I made any time an hour later.
Salvador's two shadows followed me when I left my apartment and went downtown.
So I wasn't worried that anybody might interrupt my conversation with Sheridan and Carter, attorneys at law.
Call me Sheridan.
Sure.
My client asked me to speak to you.
Speak up.
All right.
My client has been disturbed by your attitude.
Good for him.
He wonders why you haven't fulfilled your part of the bargain.
After all, you've been well paid.
You call that money?
A man I never saw before in my life came to me a couple of months ago and made the deal.
$1,500. Two months rent on a nice apartment.
And on a certain night I was to blow town. Never come back.
You should have done it.
I saw a setup a mile off. How dumb do you think I am?
That is not the question, Miss Miller.
How dumb do you think we are?
Dumb enough to know he needed a place to do a killing and someone with a rep like mine to throw the cops off.
I know who he is, where he is, how he did it, and why he did it.
Tell the client I want a payoff to keep quiet.
Lots of payoff.
Or I can tell a whole lot of cops something that will keep them absolutely spellbound.
I see.
Well?
Will this be enough to start with, Miss Miller?
A thousand dollars?
Look, Sonny, this is the major leagues I want ten to start with.
I haven't had much money in the office.
You can get it. There's a bank downstairs.
You're playing a very dangerous game, Miss Miller.
I've got built-in police protection at all times.
All you have to worry about is coming through.
That protection may not last forever.
Let me worry about that.
Miss Miller, it's not up to me to decide the outcome of this affair, but somewhere, someplace, sometime, you'll be alone on a dark street.
And I wouldn't want to say what might happen to you.
Well, don't you worry, Buster.
I'm going to be burning money to keep all those dark streets bright.
Now call the bank.
Auto Light is bringing you Miss Barbara Stanwyck in The Wages of Sin.
Tonight's production in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
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And now Auto Light brings back to our Hollywood soundstage Miss Barbara Stanwyck in Elliot Lewis's production of The Wages of Sin, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
They don't think those next few months weren't great, Captain Salvador.
They were the last days of Pompeii with Christmas and a Polish wedding thrown in.
I picked up my checks regularly from Victor Sheridan and I spent them regularly on Ruby Miller.
I never could understand why the two men you always had shadowing me didn't pick up Victor Sheridan.
But why look a gift horse in the mouth?
I was busy enough being the belle of the boulevard, the girl most likely to succeed.
Clothes, all over the place.
Money, any place that weren't clothes.
Nightclubs, I was a bigger attraction than the chorus girl.
Men, like flies in a sugar ball.
And don't think I ever got tired of it.
Why, I even got tapped by the 400.
Of course, I was sort of a late starter, but so were Brokers Tip and the Yankees.
Let's see, it was Douglas Elwood Tisdale who had the mink ranches.
Clayton Dashiell who made governors.
Hamilton Moore who was in shipping and polo.
And Talber G. Cooper whose taste ran to women.
Ruby, I've known girls from Bombay to Hunter.
Well, don't tell me about them. I hear Kinsey's in town.
No, no, what I was going to say was that you're the most exciting of them all.
Oh, Coupe, squash head.
I don't come from Bombay or Hunter, so I don't have to follow the rules.
Go get yourself some new material.
No, no, I mean it.
If I were conning you, I'd do it in another place, not here.
Oh, cut it off. I came here for laughs.
Say, who are those two people over by the window?
Don't you know, really?
Look, stupid. Didn't you ever read anything but Noel Coward?
If I knew who they were, I wouldn't have asked.
Well, come on, I'll introduce you.
The distinguished looking man lives on an inheritance,
and the distinguished looking woman lives on, well, memories, I guess.
Hello, Coupe. Nice to see you.
Hello, Clint and Ray.
May I present Miss Ruby Miller, Mr. Clinton Fisher.
How do you do, Mr. Fisher?
And Mrs. David Madlock.
Talk about your drama.
That moment could have run 36 straight weeks at the Barrymore Theater.
As you know, Captain, it was my first performance
at trying to carry on idle chit-chat with the widow of a man found dead in my apartment.
Must have been her first, too, because she excused herself and walked quickly away.
The guy who staged the scene, Cooper the Coward, also took a powder.
By natural selection, I guess we're left alone, Miss Miller.
What's she complaining about? I wasn't found dead in his apartment.
Well, you couldn't exactly expect her to carry on tea-time conversation with you.
Look, is she a friend of yours?
I know her.
Well, tell her the next husband she gets, keep him home.
That means keeping him happy, if she isn't too chilled to find time.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Fisher, I'll go have a drink.
Allow me to join you, Miss Miller.
Why?
Frankly, I like you.
If anybody tells you men over 50 don't have charm, put salt in their coffee.
Clint Fisher was as charming as they made them.
And the thought came to me that this was my chance to move from the phony money to the real stuff.
And he was said to have more connections than the plumbing at the Waldorf.
I intended someday to use them. And my chance came sooner than I thought.
Yes, ma'am.
Captain Doric Salvador wants to see me.
You mean Lieutenant Salvador. He got a bust too.
Good, he was too arrogant.
Third door on the left, lady.
Don't look so mad, Sergeant. Maybe if you work hard, you'll be busted too someday.
Hello, Lieutenant.
Yeah.
Sit down.
What did you do, kick the mayor's mother?
No, the commissioner got a little mad because I didn't bring anybody in for David Madlock.
What did you call me down here for, awake?
The commissioner's dropping the case.
What do you mean?
He called us off. Madlock will be under him in the file. I'll be on another case.
Yeah, but that means that I...
Uh-huh. Starting tomorrow, where you go, you go alone.
What is this, you're pulling off my protection?
Ruby, we had those men on you to see if anybody made a move toward you, not for protection.
I got a right to protection.
You forfeited every right you had when you threw in them with the wrong people.
In my opinion, Ruby, you sold your soul for a fur muff and a filet mignon.
Don't talk to me like that, you lousy failure.
Shut up! I played your game long enough, this is the end.
You don't even know what I'm talking about. You'll never know.
All dames like you got is your sex. You wouldn't know a good piece of music if you heard it.
You've never read anything longer than a menu in your life.
You couldn't tell me two intelligent things about the history of the people you came from
or the name of the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence.
All you got is a 75-word vocabulary and 112 pounds of flesh
that could have been put to better use in unhandling.
You listen to me, flathead. Where do you get off telling me how worthless I am?
Just because I went out and made myself a few bucks the hard way?
Well, I took nerve and I've got it.
It didn't take any to sit behind that desk and get demoted from captain to lieutenant.
You picked your way of life yourself and because everybody isn't like you, you can't stomach them.
Your kind doesn't send your sons to college so they'll know a good piece of music when they hear it.
You send them to learn how to make money.
And you don't dress your daughters in the best clothes you can buy because they know who wrote the Constitution.
You do it so they'll marry into money.
You're cheaper on your level than I am on mine because you lie about what you really want and I don't.
I'm honest. I say what I want right out and I get it.
Are you through?
No. Why did the commissioner call off the case?
It was costing too much.
I can smell a fix 20 miles off. You're going to set me up for a kill.
I'm not setting you up for anything. They called me off the case. That's all I know.
Yeah? Well, if the commissioner's been fixed, he can be unfixed.
I know some pretty big people now.
I hope they can help you.
They will. They will. Don't worry. I'll have my protection back.
And while I'm at it, I think I'll have you busted down to sergeant.
And I couldn't wait to do it to you.
Clint Fisher was my boy. By then I had him wrapped around my little finger.
He knew the skeleton in everybody's closet and I was going to make him rattle a few.
I pulled out all the stops and he had my hero printed all over him when he said he'd see what he could do.
You cops who thought you had a corner on everything fracture me.
I slipped on a negligee and cracked a bottle of champagne.
While I waited for my team to go into action.
Hello?
Clint Fisher, Ruby.
Oh, Clint, darling. Oh, it's so nice to hear your voice.
It's nice to hear yours, Ruby. Are you all right?
Oh, yes, of course. Don't worry about me.
Well, Ruby...
Everything's going to be fixed, Clint?
Not exactly. That's why I called you.
I've tried everybody in town and I hate to say this, but there's nothing I can do for you.
Absolutely nothing.
Clint, you don't mean that.
I'm afraid, honey, you're on your own.
Don't tell me about men.
I know more ways they can be cheap and lying, two-faced and vicious than you can count in a year.
But Clint Fisher wasn't the only man in the world who could fix things.
So I tried the rest of them up and down the social register and through the moneymen and tycoons
and every one of them chickened out, every one of them.
No, Ruby. Sorry, Ruby. Try someone else, Ruby. That's all I got.
Don't tell me about men.
Then I began to get scared.
Scared right down through the little veins.
I locked the door in polar shades and told the desk to let no one visit me.
And I sat there all night. I didn't bear sleep.
And half the next day, I was scared.
But then I remembered, I still had an ace to play.
Sheridan.
Yes, yes, Ruby.
What's the matter with you?
Nothing.
I came to make a deal. A deal, do you hear me?
Too late.
I won't spill. I'll never say a word, not a single word to anyone. I'll even get out of town.
I...
What are you laughing about?
You, trying to make a deal.
I got the greatest deal in the world, the greatest. You never heard anything like this. Listen.
I don't even know who the client is.
I don't know. I never knew, never.
All I know is some creep I never saw before.
Gave me a couple of thousand bucks to use the apartment for a killing.
I don't even know his name. He came and he was gone. That's all I know. Believe me.
Sheridan!
Shot me. Shot me in the stomach.
Who?
The client. He killed Madlock because he wanted Mrs. Madlock.
She found out last night. Committed suicide.
He went crazy, thought I told her.
But after shooting, I said it was you.
And you don't even know him?
Who is the client, Sheridan? He'll kill me. I've got to tell the police.
Tell me who is he.
Oh, don't die, don't die. Tell me.
I ran out of that office as fast as I could make it.
I didn't know where to go, what to do.
I couldn't end up like Sheridan. I couldn't, I couldn't.
Then I decided to go to my apartment.
Get my money and try to get out of town.
I ran up the stairs, locked the door.
I stood there trying to pull myself together.
And I got an idea.
Salvatore.
Captain, listen to me. Listen carefully.
Who is it?
Ruby, Ruby Miller. Now listen to me.
The client's after me.
I know he is.
The client?
The man who killed David Matlock.
It's just the way you said.
I take everything back I ever said to you.
I'm sorry, really, truly sorry.
I suppose you want protection.
Oh yes, yes, please send somebody.
Come yourself, take care of me.
I'm in my apartment and I'm afraid to leave it.
Ruby, you're a great girl for deals.
We had two men following you and three men following Sheridan.
We didn't find out a thing.
Tell me who this client is. We'll go out and pick him up.
Oh, that's just it. I don't know.
I don't know. I really don't. It was all a bump.
They thought I knew, but I didn't. I don't know a thing.
I played it for what I could get and it worked.
Now you don't expect me to believe that.
You've got to believe it. You've got to.
I don't know who he is or where he's coming from,
but I know I'll be killed.
You're lying, Ruby.
When you're ready, tell me the truth.
I'll give you what you want. Goodbye.
Don't hang up. Don't please. I'll be killed.
I tried to get you back, but they said you'd left the office.
I wanted to tell you about Dick Sheridan's death.
That would have been proof.
That's why I'm writing you this letter. You'll have to believe it.
I'm packed and I'm leaving town
and I don't ever want to come back.
I'm nailing it from the airport.
So long, Dork.
I hope you have better luck finding the client than I did.
Hello?
Are you all right? This is Salvadori.
Oh, yes.
We just found Dick Sheridan.
I'm sorry, Ruby.
Sometimes my personal opinion of people gets in the way of my badge.
We'll be over there in a couple of minutes.
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Oh. Oh.
Who?
Who is it?
Clint Fisher. Let me in.
Oh. Oh, Clint.
Oh, Clint, I'm so glad you came.
Nobody cared. Nobody would do anything.
Now, Ruby, you'll be all right.
Somebody's after me. Clint, they'll get me. They will. They...
Clint, what...
What's that gun for?
For you, baby.
Oh, Clint, don't. Don't do anything.
I'll scream.
That won't help. You can't outrun a bullet.
You've had a free ride on me.
I was perfectly willing to give you money when it meant something to avoid trouble.
But now you're going to pay it all back.
I'll do anything. Anything in the world.
Don't close your eyes because it's going to hurt.
They'll get you, Clint. The police will get you.
I know, but I'll get it quick. You'll get it the hard way.
Oh, Clint, please. Don't.
Oh.
Hold... hold me. Hold me up.
How does it feel, Ruby?
That's what you get for telling Mary Medlock I killed her husband.
Mary was the one thing I wanted.
I killed together, made it as sordid as possible.
Girl's apartment and all so she'd forget even his memory.
And after all the dough I paid, you had to tell her.
I... I didn't tell her.
I didn't even know who...
All right, you stand where you are.
With your hands in the air.
Come and get me.
Hey, will you look at that?
They're lying on the same spot where Medlock was killed.
Yeah, the wages of sin.
Suspense presented by Auto Light.
Tonight's star, Miss Barbara Stanwyck.
The north wind doth blow and we shall have snow
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Next week on Suspense, Mr. Richard Widmark, a star of Too Hot to Live.
And in weeks to come, you will hear such famous stars as Herbert Marshall
and William Holden appearing in tales well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense!
Tonight's Suspense play was produced and directed by Elliot Lewis
with music composed by Lucian Moraweck and conducted by Lud Bluskin.
The Wages of Sin was written for Suspense by E. Jack Newman and John Michael Hayes.
Ms. Stanwyck may currently be seen in the MGM picture to please a lady.
And remember next week on Suspense, Mr. Richard Widmark in Too Hot to Live.
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